Days like today- arrghhhhh!!!

For me i have realized I'm not as honest about my emotions as i think i am. The infamous no-brainer day, May 08, was a big setback for me. I kept shorting, lost my composure and kept shorting, then started chasing long. In hindsight the bull momentum that day was much stronger than today. The fact that it should have been so easy to make money that day just added to the frustration. All day long i kept convincing myself I was using good rational judgement.

I dont trade this type of day well either. Knowing that, I think i get frustrated and force the reversal. It sounds stupid but looking back at my trades, it looks like thats what I do. I tried to short nq just before 10:00 today and again about 5 minutes later. Just watched the rest of the day. Its tough to sit out on a big day, but untill I believe I can trade them thats what I'm going to do.
 
Switching MOs, that's the problem. For the natural fader solution is to wait for correction then go with the flow. Isn't it what Linda Raschke calls "Holy Grail" set up?
 
Let me add I never outperform the mkts, no matter what the day
brings!! Big deal, it's solving the puzzle that's fun, no??

We walk away from everything just to see a dream come true. Then all of a sudden , like a miracle, something clicks, and after years of being nothing, we go in style down on WALL STREET!
 
... and ran...

...once upon a time, I'd eat it day after day, waiting for a day like today to make it all back and get positive. Now I trade almost 100% differently, and am green most days, and often do my best on days that once upon a time would have killed me, but on days like today, like a lot of you it seems, I'm better off mostly just watching the parade. Maybe when I grow up, I'll be better at switching gears or directions or vehicles...

On the other hand, how many days like today - a mega-rally in a half-session - have there been, altogether? Maybe only a handful in the entire history of the stock exchange... I believe that rambling narrow range days, where you can easily get pushed around and heavily penalized for going with breakouts, are much more the norm. (Maybe I'll post some research later... ) Being a little flabbergasted by what we got instead may even be a sign that you actually do know what you're doing.

I received a lot of positive reinforcement for confessing back on the "no-brainer day" that I had done an excruciatingly terrible job... So let me congratulate Janko and the others on their honesty. You have my respect, and, I'm sure, the respect of a quite a few others here. I suspect that the best of us have done a lot worse. Most of us who have been doing this for any time at all know the feeling of looking at ugly losses when the whole world seems to be throwing a bull party.

I'd hate to encourage anyone who doesn't have a workable strategy, but, presuming that you do, I hope you'll take some encouragement from my own example: My own brainless performance on May 8 was the last really bad day I had this year. Though I haven't suddenly become LBR or Tony Oz or something, and have slipped up many times, overall I've been trading better than ever before.
 
Well thnx kymar for the kind words, i guess one thing that i'm happy about that i did today was that after a second trade not going the way i thought it would i covered it and then just sat there and watched, that was it for me. Although i must admitt that if the day didnt end at 1pm i think i would have tried probably one more time to give it a shot to see if my short would fire the right way. But I'm just happy that i kinda realized that it just wasnt in the cards to fade the moves and left it alone. Who knows maybe some day i'll be able to switch strategies at the flick of a button but till then, i just hope that i'll be able to sit out more often rather than trying to make the market do what i think it should.
 
Originally posted by janko
Who knows maybe some day i'll be able to switch strategies at the flick of a button but till then, i just hope that i'll be able to sit out more often rather than trying to make the market do what i think it should.
More...

That's one of the things I watch myself for. I have alternative setups that help me enter/exit a trade for both long and short (I use the 60 min chart for this, and watch the 15/5). My primary setup is the most likely direction to trade in, but so I don't get stuck in a perspective, I clearly define the conditions that would indicate the trade isn't potentially as lucrative as originally thought. I don't know if this will help you become more flexible, but it might be worthwhile to develop alternative scenarios and see if it pans out.

That being said, I also don't think it's necessary to be in the market 24/7. If you aren't feeling 100% (mental+physical) then it's probably best to use a psychological stop. Sit out and work on other aspects of your game.
 
trading that I truly felt paralyzed. My wife sees the news on NBC about the big rally and asks "Wow, you must have done well today!" Sit...watch...wait for the retracement..go long...finally got a single trade off on NVLS for 1/10 th of the move and continued to watch it go higher and higher. Chalk it down to experience and feel good that my trading rules weren't violated by emotion? I think it's the only way to look at this day. The market is open on Monday :D
 
Originally posted by janko
Well thnx kymar for the kind words, i guess one thing that i'm happy about that i did today was that after a second trade not going the way i thought it would i covered it and then just sat there and watched, that was it for me. Although i must admitt that if the day didnt end at 1pm i think i would have tried probably one more time to give it a shot to see if my short would fire the right way. But I'm just happy that i kinda realized that it just wasnt in the cards to fade the moves and left it alone. Who knows maybe some day i'll be able to switch strategies at the flick of a button but till then, i just hope that i'll be able to sit out more often rather than trying to make the market do what i think it should.
More...


janko, this is a great post!!!! i hate days like this!!!! i think they are by far the hardest of all to trade. now if this had been 2 or 3 years ago that would be different, but today's action was an aberration. i have learned the expensive way to just sit these out......and thankfully i had a great excuse not to trade today. (light volume)
 
know what the overnight levels

high / low

were on nasdaq and sp500 futures

on days like today ... one can get hurt when they

are broken and you are fighting the intraday move
 
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